Week in Review: Bay's Top Five Stories

In case you missed it, these are the five takeaway headlines from this week on Whitefish Bay Patch.



About 75 Whitefish Bay High School students walked out of class Tuesday morning to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill, carrying signs and chanting "kill the bill." The majority of students were excused from school,  as their parents contacted the school district and gave notice.

While school districts across the state scramble to issue preliminary layoff notices to teachers and other staff, the Whitefish Bay School District is holding off on taking any such action. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards, in anticipation of the cuts and the likely passage of Walker's budget repair bill, is urging districts to issue preliminary layoff notices by Monday. But the district entered into an agreement with the Whitefish Bay Education Association Friday that upholds the language in the existing collective bargaining agreements through the end of the spring.

Shorewood Police Chief David Banaszynski made his case to the Whitefish Bay Village Board Monday night to consolidate the two villages’ police departments. Banaszynski’s plan calls for a merged department with 44 officers instead of 49, resulting in annual savings of $507,500. One potential location Banaszynski mentioned for the consolidated department would be the former AB Data building at 4057 N. Wilson Dr.

Even if the villages purchased that building and invested another $2.5 million in remodeling the facilities, each community would still see an eventual savings of $140,000 annually or $70,000 per community, he said.

Whitefish Bay remains a relatively safe place to live, but the number of burglaries in the village more than doubled last year after a wave of home break-ins. The Whitefish Bay Police Department's annual report shows the in November and December led to a 145 percent increase in burglaries but was still a drop off from the 29 burglaries tallied in 2008.

The report shows that overall crime in the village - violent and property - increased by 13 percent from 2009 to 2010, primarily because of the rise in burglaries.

Shortly after former write-in village trustee candidate Hugo Rojas , another candidate has filed to bring the pool of candidates back to four. Brenda Szumski joined Marquette University student William Demet, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor Andrew Martin and communications consultant Lauri Rollings in the four-way write-in campaign to fill two vacant Trustee seats. Rollings also and has formed her own communications firm.